The Army introduced its first two combat-ready female Rangers to the nation Thursday, and America all but surrendered. After decades of doubts over the wisdom of sending the “weaker sex” to the front lines, 1st Lieutenant Kristen Griest, and Captain Shaye Haver demonstrated a squared-away countenance and can-do attitude that impressed both their new Ranger buddies and commanders.

Eight of the 96 Rangers slated to graduate from the demanding 62-day Ranger School Friday met with reporters at Fort Benning, Ga. The pair of women looked little different from their six male comrades, except for their slightly-longer crew cuts. Both females and males spoke with a low-key grit that blurred the gender lines and signaled what is likely to be a growing role for women on the front lines of the U.S. military.

“We can handle things physically and mentally on the same level as men,” Griest, a military police officer from Orange, Conn., said. “We can deal with the same stresses and training that the men can.”

Haver, an AH-64 Apache helicopter pilot from Copperas Cove, Tex., said whenever she became discouraged while clambering through woods, swamps and mountains, she’d look to her male comrades and gain strength. “The ability to look around at my peers and see that they were sucking just as bad I was kept me going,” she said.

1st Lt. Shaye Haver training at the Ranger School last month.

Ebony Banks / Army via Getty Images

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter hailed the pair. “It’s a huge credit for anyone, man or woman, to endure the intense training and curriculum at Ranger School,” he said at the Pentagon, after calling the two to offer his congratulations. “These recent graduates will be leaders of our Army, of our force of the future.”

The men had no complaints. 2nd Lieutenant Zachary Hagner recalled being bone-tired after carrying a 17-pound machine gun for three days. “I went to every single person, just in a line, no order, and they were `No, I’m really tired, too, I’m broken,’” he recalled the men in his squad saying.

His last hope was Griest. “She basically took it away from me,” he said. “Nine guys were like `Well, I’m too broken, I’m too tired.’ She—just as broken and tired—took it from me with almost excitement. I thought she was crazy for that, but maybe she was just motivated.”

Other males agreed. “When we were given resupply and you’re given 2,000 rounds of machine-gun ammo, the last thing you’re caring about is whether or not your Ranger buddy is a man or a woman,” 2nd Lieutenant Michael Janowski said. “Because you’re not carrying all 2,000 rounds by yourself.”

“You’re way too tired and way too hungry to really honestly care,” added Staff Sergeant Michael Calderon. “At the end of the day, everyone was a Ranger.”

Haver said any male/female distinctions evaporated as the course dragged on. “It’s pretty cool that they have accepted us,” she said of her fellow Rangers. “We ourselves came to Ranger School skeptical, with our guards up ready just in case for the haters and the nay-sayers,” but such friction never happened.

Since the Ranger School opened in 1952, 77,000 soldiers have earned the patch, widely seen as an indicator of leadership potential and spur to promotion. Last year, 1,609 of 4,057 men who began the course—40 percent—ended up earning the tab. Only about 3% of Army men are Ranger-qualified. Earning the tab doesn’t guarantee admission to the 75th Ranger Regiment, the Army’s top light-infantry outfit, which is often deployed on the service’s riskiest missions. It simply means they’re eligible for an assignment to lead in that exclusive unit. Pentagon policy currently bans women from serving in direct ground combat slots, which include infantry—like the Rangers—as well as armor, most artillery, and special-operations units.

But the pair’s graduation is a significant crack in the wall keeping women formally off the battlefield. Griest and Haver, both West Point graduates, find themselves in a limbo created by the Pentagon as it grapples with integrating women ever more deeply into the military’s combat units. It’s basically trying to amass a stockpile of Ranger-tabbed women believing the Pentagon will lift that ban early next year.

One-time Army Ranger and retired three-star general David Barno says women have been waging war alongside their male counterparts since 9/11 and advancing them to the front lines is a no-brainer. “You’ve had women integrated for the first time in American history in units in combat, and have made that work pretty darn well,” he says.

But skeptics of the move to open up combat slots to women say that adding women to front-line units would “erode mission capabilities.” Physical differences will lead to more injuries among frontline female troops, they say. Unit cohesion—the glue that binds soldiers together in battle—will weaken amid sexual dynamics in co-ed front-line units, they add.

“Arguments for or against women in combat should not rely on the experiences of two women alone,” says Elaine Donnelly, whose Center for Military Readiness opposes putting women oin the front lines. “The case for women in direct ground combat still has not been made.”

Some critics suggest standards were eased at the Ranger School, to let women graduate. The Army vehemently denies it. “Nothing should be closed because of gender,” says Ann Dunwoody, who served as the first four-star female general in U.S. history before retiring from the Army in 2012. “But I also firmly believe that the standards should not be lowered to accommodate women.”

Haver and Griest conceded they felt the weight of their historical assignment. “I was thinking of future generations of women,” Griest said. “I would like them to have that opportunity, so I had that pressure on myself.”

Kristen Griest, left, is one of the first two women to graduate from the Army's Ranger School.

"People have sorely messed up the definition of feminism. It isn’t saying this is wrong and this is right," said Chrissy Teigen during a Variety event in 2014, adding that husband John Legend also identifies: "He’s a bigger feminist than I am! He actually teaches me a lot about the way women should be perceived."

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The Twilight actress reacted to women rejecting feminism during a Daily Beast interview in October: "That’s such a strange thing to say, isn’t it? Like, what do you mean? Do you not believe in equality for men and women? I think it’s a response to overly-aggressive types."

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"I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me," said Emma Watson at a UN Women speech in September. "Men-- I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender Equality is your issue, too."

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“I would say on some levels I am [a feminist]. Angela Davis is one of my heroes,” Halle Berry told Ebony in April. “And Gloria Steinem—these are people who, as I was growing, I was moved by and impacted by and thought very deeply about.”

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"I don’t think of myself as being a feminist,” Sinead O'Connor told The Guardian in July. “I wouldn’t label myself anything, certainly not something with an ‘ism’ or an ‘ist’ at the end of it. I’m not interested in anything that is in any way excluding of men.”

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"I wouldn’t say [I'm a] feminist, that’s too strong. I think when people hear feminist it’s just like, ‘Get out of my way I don’t need anyone,’” Kelly Clarkson told TIME last year. “I love that I’m being taken care of, and I have a man that’s an actual leader. I’m not a feminist in that sense … but I’ve worked really hard since I was 19."

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Leighton Meester told OOTD magazine in February about her biggest role model. "American writer Betty Friedan — she fought for gender equality and wrote the great book The Feminine Mystique which sparked the beginning of a second-wave feminism,” Meester said. “I believe in equal rights for men and women.”

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“I don’t know why people are so reluctant to say they’re feminists," Ellen Page told The Guardian in 2013. "Maybe some women just don’t care. But how could it be any more obvious that we still live in a patriarchal world when feminism is a bad word?”

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"For me, the issue of feminism is just not an interesting concept,” Lana Del Rey told Fader magazine in their summer 2014 issue. “I’m more interested in, you know, SpaceX and Tesla, what’s going to happen with our intergalactic possibilities."

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“I would [call myself a feminist], yes.” Rashida Jones said in 2013. “I believe in the unadulterated advancement of women. And we have so far to go still.”

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“Am I a feminist? F–k yeah, I’m a feminist,” Jenny Slate told MTV News in June. “I think that unfortunately people who are maybe threatened by feminism think that it’s about setting your bra on fire and being aggressive, and I think that’s really wrong and really dangerous.”

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"A feminist? Um, yeah, actually,” Katy Perry told an Australian radio host in March. “I used to not really understand what that word meant, and now that I do, it just means that I love myself as a female and I also love men.”

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Amy Poehler says she's confused by how many women deny that they're feminists, “but then they go on to explain what they support and live by — it’s feminism exactly,” she told Elle magazine in January. "That’s like someone being like, ‘I don’t really believe in cars, but I drive one every day and I love that it gets me places and makes life so much easier and faster and I don’t know what I would do without it.’”

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"We need to stop buying into the myth about gender equality. It isn’t a reality yet," Beyonce wrote in an essay titled "Gender Equality is a Myth" in January. She also famously included an excerpt from Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TEDx talk in her song, "Flawless."

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“I feel like I’m one of the biggest feminists in the world because I tell women to not be scared of anything,” Miley Cyrus told the BBC last November.

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"I wish when I was 12-years-old I had been able to watch a video of my favorite actress explaining in such an intellectual, beautiful, poignant way the definition of feminism."Taylor Swift said in reaction to Emma Watson's speech at the UN in September. "Because I would have understood it. And then earlier on in my life I would have proudly claimed I was a feminist because I would have understood what the word means."

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“Women saying ‘I’m not a feminist’ is my greatest pet peeve,” Lena Dunham told Metro in 2013. “Do you believe that women should be paid the same for doing the same jobs? Do you believe that women should be allowed to leave the house? Do you think that women and men both deserve equal rights? Great, then you’re a feminist.”

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"No, because I love men," was Shailene Woodley's response when TIME asked her whether she considered herself a feminist in May. "I think the idea of ‘raise women to power, take the men away from the power’ is never going to work out because you need balance…My biggest thing is really sisterhood more than feminism.”

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“I’m getting the sense that you’re a little bit of a feminist, like I am, which is good,” Lady Gaga told the LA Times in 2009. “I find that men get away with saying a lot in this business, and that women get away with saying very little . . . In my opinion, women need and want someone to look up to that they feel have the full sense of who they are, and says, ‘I’m great.’ “

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“[Feminism] means being proud of being a woman, and [having] love, respect and admiration and the belief in our strong capacities,” Salma Hayek told Stylist in 2012. “I don’t think we are the same, women and men. We’re different. But I don’t think we are less than men. There are more women than men in the world – ask any single woman! So it is shocking that men are in more positions of power.”

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Children yell to players after a game between the New York Mets and Houston Astros at Citi Field on September 28, 2014 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City.

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